Ute Carbone's Blog, page 17

You've Got Mail!

Letters from the Garret, a newsletter from me right to your e-mail inbox,  is an idea that's been germinating in my head for some time now. And I'm finally going to do it! I've set up a place for sign ups and have been gathering subscribers. I've designed the logo--a variation on the one here on my website. I've got a template ready for content, at least for the first installment, which I hope to get out early next month.
It will, like the website and the blog, be a work in progress. Initially, I'm dipping in with the idea of writing quarterly and, if I have enough stuff to write about, will try for bi-monthly or even monthly. And I'll have 'special editions' when I have a new release. I'm still working out the content, though I do intend to write an actual letter, similar to the notes from the garret sprinkled through out this website. I'll also include some extras--a recipe or a  video or a book review or some other fun things. I plan to vary these 'little surprises' so there will always be something unexpected to delight you (I hope I can pull this part off!) 
If you'd like to sign on, just fill out the form below. It's easy peasy lemon squeezy--

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#8Sunday--Approaching the Finish Line with The Fall Line #amwriting

I'd been wrestling with my work in progress and this week, the sun parted the clouds (both literally and figuratively) and there it was, the finish line, the ending of my story. I haven't quite reached it yet, but now that I've figured out more or less exactly where I'm going, it's moving forward and I'll soon be crossing it. 


In the Fall Line, my main character, Mia, has been trying to make a comeback to her ski racing career after an accident. Her best friend, Tin (Christina) has left the team and taken her life in another direction.

"Sooner is better," Tin said. Jack was on one side of the bed and I was on the other. Tin was squeezing both our hands and if her grip on mine was indication, it would take us both a week to get feeling back.

If there was a record for fastest birth, Tin might have broken it. Anna Mia Wilder, 7 pounds and 4 ounces, was born one hour after we'd arrived at the hospital. I didn't have much experience with babies and the thing that struck me was how tiny she was, and how vividly alive as she cried and opened and shut her miniature fingers.  Jack held her in his arms as though she were made of glass until she quieted and then handed her back to Tin. Both of them were lit up like Christmas trees, elated wouldn't begin to describe it.  A mix of things roiled through my gut, happiness for Tin and Jack, amazement at the tiny human they'd made together, and a kind of sadness, like I was outside with my nose pressed to the glass wishing for what was inside the window

The Fall Line is my second ski themed love story. The first, Dancing in the White Room, is available both as an e-book and paperback. You can find more about it HERE  Be sure to stop by WEEKEND WRITING WARRIORS and visit all the other authors with Sunday eight snippets!

Writing Problem #157—Mulling Characters. #amwriting

I've been reading through my work in progress, The Fall Line as I prepare to write the final, 'third act' of the story.  I adore these characters and love hanging out with them. Mia is strong, self-sufficent, accomplished and competitive. And Creech, whose been with me since I wrote Dancing in the White Room, a great guy with a heart as big as a state, who also happens to be sexy as all get out.

I usually let my characters 'talk' to me, and tell me what's going on in their hearts and in their heads (and yes, I know how odd this sounds, though it's not so uncommon for fiction writers).  As I was doing my read through, though, I realized I might have given these a little too much mulling space. They seem to be spending an awful lot of time hemming and hawing and going back and forth. The problem is this slows down the forward momentum of the story. It gets tedious and tedious is very, very bad. Last thing I want is put readers to sleep.

Once I'm finished with the story, I'll have to go through with my pruning shears (figurative, of course) and cut out all of the dead words. Meantime, I'll write the end with the mulling problem in mind. Oh, I'll still let them tell the story, but if they go too far in thinking things over, I'm going to have to remind them to 'get on with it already'. 

#8Sunday--The Fall Line

I've been getting back into my women's fiction work in progress this week. The Fall Line is a story set in ski country, with some cross-over characters from Dancing in the White Room. It's been giving me fits and starts, but I hope to get it moving forward again as I'm getting close to putting 'the end' on it and finishing the draft. 


In this scene, the main character, Mia, has broken it off once and for all with her boyfriend, Connor.


"Answer me this, Mia --did you ever love me?"

 "Of course I did." All the good times we'd had together raced through my brain—Connor holding my hand as we watched fireworks, Connor sitting behind me on a toboggan, his arms around my waist as we careened down the hill behind the Inn,  Connor undressing me for the first time, his eyes heavy with want. I had loved him, hadn't I?

            "I don't believe you ever did." He stood up and walked out the door without looking back.

            No, I wanted to shout, I did love you. It's just that I loved skiing more.


My other ski-themed story, Dancing in the White Room can be found HERE 



For more great eight sentence snippets,  check out WEEKEND WRITING WARRIORS

A Book is Not a Cheese Sandwich. It is not a Cheese Slicer, Either. #amwriting

 I like to keep a positive relationship with my writing. Like most authors I know, I love to write—when the work goes well, when I'm in the zone, it's a wonderful thing, to be able to create a story, to breathe life into characters.

Fast forward a few years and your book is being readied for market. And it goes from wonderful creation to commodity, something that's bought and sold like cheese sandwiches at a deli or cheese slicers at your favorite discount store.  We begin to talk about our work in units—and it's not about how much your characters touched the reader as it is about how many books were sold.

The problem with this, for me at least, is that, to me at least, books aren't a commodity. Books are so much more than cheese slicers.  A good book can take you places you've never been and meet people you've never met before. A good story allows you to fall in love again as though for the first time, it is the connective tissue that holds our human hearts together. There are studies that suggest fiction readers develop more empathy than non readers. This isn't surprising, given the power of words.

And yet, we send our words to market; we hand over our stories, often cheaply, and worry over how many units will be sold. Our words are reduced to so many cheese sandwiches. In the process, we are reduced as well, to producers of words instead of crafters of story. How do you determine a story's worth?  The simple answer is, you can't.

#8 Sunday: Marco, Easter and The P-Town Queen

Welcome and Happy Easter!  I scoured my books for eight sentences having to do with Easter and came up with a scene from The P-Town Queen.  In it, Marco has just arrived in Provincetown Ma, where he plans to hide out from the hit man who is after him  by pretending to be gay in a town known for it's gay community. As it happens, he arrives on Easter Sunday.

By the time the bus rolled into P-town, I had myself convinced that it would all work out. After the bus dropped us off and Evan got the boys to sing “So Long, Farewell,” as we went our separate ways, I had to stop myself from flagging down another bus and begging the driver to take me back to Newark.

I walked the length of Commercial Street. Most of the shops were closed and the only noise came from the pier where the boats were going in and out and off into distance. Church bells started to ring, and I thought about my Nona and how all those years she’d drag me off to Mass every week and how on Easter she’d always hide a couple of those plastic Easter eggs with pennies in them. I was a sucker for those eggs. I don’t think she would’ve liked it to see me walking down the street homeless, so I made her a promise that I’d find a job. And that, after I got done with being gay, I’d settle down with a nice girl. There's lots more about The P-Town Queen, including where you can buy your own copy, on The P-Town web page 


For more great eights, please visit Weekend Writing Warriors

Act One of Second Hand Love #amwriting

I've just drawn the curtain on act one of a romantic comedy I'm calling (for now at least) Second Hand Love. I'm going to go through, do a bit of rewrite and then set it aside as I go back to my ski story, The Fall Line, which I hope to finish in the next few months. 
I break up my writing this way, going from book to book. It's a weird sort of tick, I guess, this flitting about, the byproduct of a brain that likes variety. If I ever get really popular and sell enough books,  I may have to give up my quirk and write one book at a time.
The flitting isn't as random as it appears at first glance. I tend to divide the writing into fours--act one, parts one and two of act two, and act three. I like to think about story structure as being like a three act play and each act has a set purpose. Act one comprises about the first fifth (or so) of the book. It's there to introduce you to the characters and to the setting and to give you the conflict and reason for following the story. Starting stories is always fun for me, although it can be difficult, sometimes, to get the character voices and personalities right at the beginning. 
By the end of act one, the main characters have begun to take shape and if I'm lucky, I like having them around. Zoe, the main character of Second Hand, is no exception to this. She's twenty three, bright, funny and somewhat ambitious. Her parents and grandparents have been married multiple times, so it's little wonder she's writing a new blog called Uncoupled, about the breakup of relationships. And it's also small wonder that she has trouble in believing a lasting relationship is in her future.
Zoe has a new boyfriend. Derek is sweet and loyal, a guy's guy with simple tastes who believes in love and relationship. He has trouble keeping up with Zoe's fast-racing thoughts and is both in awe of her and a little taken aback. They aren't really very well matched--something that will play itself out and become more apparent in act two, when conflict gets worse and lives begin to get tangled.
I've got a long ways to go until I write the end onto Second Hand Love. And, because I'll put it aside and pick it up again, it'll take me a year or more to get there. I'm well on my way, though, having finished act one and putting Zoe's story in motion. 

Weekend Writing Warriors--Second Hand Love #amwriting

I haven't done WeWriWa in a good long time  and it feels great to be back !
 If your not familiar with the blog hop, it's a place where writers share eight sentence snippets of their writing.   
This week, I'm sharing a little bit from my romantic comedy work in progress, a book that's (for now anyway) called Second Hand Love. In this scene, t he main character, Zoe, has pitched an idea for a blog to her boss and he's said yes. 




My thoughts began racing around my head. "New blog? Mine?" Apparently, my words could not keep up with them.


 "Your work is good, Ms. Markham, heartfelt and funny. I think our readers will like it."

"You think our readers will like it?" I wished I could stop sounding like an idiot, but I had to repeat the sentence to keep from shouting "Yipee", raising my fists, and dancing around his office.


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Balancing Act #amwriting

It's an exciting time for me and, with two books coming out this year--The Tender Bonds in May and Sweet Auralie in October, you'll probably be hearing a lot from me online. Between you, me and the keyboard, I hate doing promotion. I'm not a salesperson or a marketer and I don't enjoy pushing my books. That's not to say I don't like talking about books--or my characters. Ask me about one of my stories, or the writing process,  or the motivations of a character, and I'm a happy camper. Heck, I could expound all day on which point of view is best. 
But creating a book requires time and space. Not physical space, exactly, but an open space in your mind.  It can be hard to switch from the chatter of online social media to the still place inside my brain, inside my heart, where I can best conjure. Often, it's the still times I enjoy the best. I love the creation process, I love creating story. It's why I started down the writing road in the first place. 
It's easy to get caught up in the chatter--and moving between online presence into the heart of story sometimes feels like I'm balancing a ping pong ball on the end of my nose.  For me, it's one of the big challenges of this writing life, learning to balance it all. 

From the #Poetry Files-- The House We Built

I love pictures of old houses, they often spur something in my imagination. This one, an old Victorian in Port Jervis New York,  inspired a poem. 


The house we built

Was a  lofty place full of drafts.
The rooms filled to capacity-
armchairs with tatted amacasters,
ribbon candy in milk glass

The bed cloaked in  eiderdown
embellished with lace
and  a hint of rosewater

Yellow suns grew
n kitchen wallpaper,
cheery as the bread
we baked on winter afternoons

Dust motes dance over the windows
and cobwebs lace corners.
The polish is gone from the floor

The pipes are rusted
and the faucet drip drips
a complaint

The rooms echo
with the footfall of years
 left behind-
like the trace of cologne
on the collar of the  only shirt
still hanging in the closet

Like the wedding photograph
on the nightstand-
a soft sepia imprint  time worn and faded .